Ten Inexpensive Ways To Liven Up Your Store

1. Buy Matching Hangers One of the easiest and most frequently ignored ways to clean up and better merchandise your shop is by getting hangers that are all the same. Hang all coats on the same hangers, and pants on pants hangers for a consistent and organized look.

2. A Wall Face-Lift Repaint the store in fun colors, and trim the windows, halls, etc. with a fresh new look. Also, try some creative painting styles such as marbleizing, sponge prints, or interesting graffiti murals.

3. Build Look around old construction projects or dump sites for lumber, metal pipes, and other scraps to build cubes, metal people, or entire shelving systems from galvanized-steel gas pipes to create great inexpensive displays.

4. Frame Or Laminate Great Posters Instead of just hanging your favorite company promotional posters up with thumbtacks, have them laminated. Or frame them for a cleaner and more sophisticated look.

5. Change The Floor Tile the front entryway by designing mosaic patterns out of non-skid ceramic or linoleum tiles. Look for close-out colors and styles. Painting a cement or wood floor with a pattern is also a subtle way to change the look of your store.

6. Reorganize Create some method to the madness of hanging merchandise in the shop. Hang clothes in color groups, putting the reds with reds or blues with blues, and organize garments such as short jackets to hang with other short jackets, bibs with bibs, and long jackets with long jackets.

7. Art Invite local artists to display different types of art in your store. Design entire displays around the art to generate a funky and fresh look in the shop. Set up an agreement to sell art on consignment, and possibly earn some money on the side

8. Separate Even small stores can separate the men's from the women's stuff. Design a small women's area. Merchandise it with props such as plants, women's posters, etc. If you want to sell to a lot of women, you need to commit to them.

9. Magic Windows Focus a lot of attention to your window displays. Often they are the reason a new customer will come in to check you out. Liven up your windows by using props such as car parts, wire fencing, tree branches with Christmas lights, bikes, art, or metal pipes -- whatever works for you to help display clothing and equipment.

10. Fresh Grids Although grid and slat walls have been overdone, they are one of the most effective ways to clean walls up, free up some floor space, and display a lot of stuff. By painting them, putting fencing or netting over them, or cutting them into unique patterns and shapes, you can have the function of the slats, without the clichéd look.

-- Anke Corbin